1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a process for executing a multimedia communication based on a network protocol, in particular TCP/IP and/or UDP, in accordance with the preamble of claim 1.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such communications relate above all, but not exclusively, to multimedia data transmissions via the internet and Internet services, providers and the corresponding hardware components. These are, in particular, terminals in the form of computers, mobile PCs or so-called hand-held devices that communicate with a dial-in node via a modem, ISDN or wideband circuits and access and execute web applications via corresponding means such as browsers.
A corresponding process for the transmission of communication data and a video conference and video chat system are described in WO 03/034730 A1. The document discloses a transmission of moving image data between two terminals in a packet-switched communication. The terminals comprise means for coding and decoding the moving image data in connection with audio data. The data can be recorded by a terminal and transmitted in real time to one or more terminals. This is accomplished by transmitting the video and/or audio data from any of the participating terminals to a common server. The transmitted video and audio data are separately collected for each terminal, are coded and continuously transmitted to receiving terminals, wherein each subscriber at the receiving terminals can view several other subscribers as live images on a monitor of his terminal and, in addition, communicate with them both audio-visually or in text form.
This chat system may be supplemented with moderation functions, wherein a subscriber having particular rights grants other subscribers moderation rights or withdraws them, or connects additional subscribers or excludes them from the chat.
However, the process described in this document realizes the increasingly higher, differentiated and more complex communication requirements of the participating users only very inadequately. The interaction of different users, who communicate with each other and exchange information and data via networks such as the Internet, has reached a complexity in recent years which is called “social networks” or “communities”, which have become a complement to internet-based communication networks. An example of this are the Internet communities “MySpace” on an international level or “StudiVZ” in the German area.
These require very different and advanced and more flexible technical means and processes that exceed pure video, chat and conference systems and that have to reproduce the existing contacts between the subscribers as closely to reality as possible. Specifically, this relates to the way how subscribers represent themselves in the web, how they meet and find each other, how they join to form sub-networks having their own collective identity, where they communicate in closed or semi-open areas, thereby dissociating from the larger network and appearing towards the outside world.
Thus, the previously effective clear separation between the provider of a website and the user of the website gets more and more lost. Each of the subscribers to such a social network or such a community is, at the same time, a subscriber among many. On the other hand, he is able to input and maintain his own information, and determine himself who may retrieve these information, and under which conditions. The presently available video and chat systems are not suited for these extensive, new requirements and have proved to be too constrictive for this purpose.
Therefore, it is the object to override the constrictions of the previously known video and chat systems and extend and upgrade the basic functions of such systems so as to allow the realization of social networks and web-based communities in a manner as flexible as possible.